But Paterno's gifts go beyond the sidelines as three recent scenes show.

1. From his weekly news conference of Nov. 16:

Q. What has it meant to you and the program to see Adam Taliaferro not only pick himself up after a difficult situation but thrive in a lot of ways over the last three or four years?

A. I am down on the shore one day and I am going in to buy a paper and this very distinguished looking gentleman stops me and says, “I am so and so, you tried to recruit my kid to go to Penn State.” It was 10:00 a.m. I said where did he go? He gave me his name and I said, “Yeah, I remember the name.” I didn’t want him to see that I didn’t remember who the kid was. He went to Penn on a basketball scholarship. He said, “I am a lawyer in a big law firm. You know, we had Adam Taliaferro down there as an intern and we had 12 interns. Adam Taliaferro was the best intern we had. We had interns from most of the best schools in the east. We are going to try to get him to come with us after he gets out of law school.” You look back and remember him (Adam) being carried off the field. Then Sunday he is on his back and I am in there with him with his father and mother and we don’t know whether he is ever going to walk again. To have a guy stop and tell you that there is a kid who is the best intern he had, it was very moving to me. Adam is in the process of trying to get to law school right now and I am in the process of trying to make sure he gets into the one he wants. It is just a great story. I think Adam was probably as big of an inspiration to the whole group and is today as to what Penn State is all about. His dad was up the last time we played at home and he put his arm around me and said how much he appreciated Penn State. ... That is why I say when you talk about where we are going because offamily, we do stick together. We hang in there together.

2. From office humor on a major metropolitan daily sports copy desk:

Someone wondered aloud why Tyrone Willingham was fired, but not Joe Paterno. To which one editor quipped, with mocking tearful emotions:

"Joe Paterno is an icon!!! So what if he hasn't won a game since Bill Clinton was President."

3. Bill Conlin's tribute in The Philadelphia Daily News to a legend:

"One of these days, weeks, months, years -- decades? -- Joe Paterno will no longer be wearing out the lush grass along the sideline of the House That JoePa Built, Beaver Stadium.

"For some in this winter of Penn State football's discontent, it's a time that can't come soon enough. For others, it will mark more than the passing of an era; it will be the end of one of college football's most total dynasties. No football coach in history has been more influential in charting the course of an institution.

"The days, weeks, months, seasons, have dwindled down to a precious few for JoePa. A day is coming when he will be Joe Paterno, former Penn State head football coach.

"My advice to the new guy, whoever he is: Rent, don't buy. Keep a few bags packed so you have a jump on a press conference that will be coming sooner than later, if history is any predictor. Don't be surprised if a few nasty signs show up on your lawn, if your wife is heckled at the market by strangers, and your status at the helm of the Nittany Lions is greeted with less than the slavish dedication commanded by Paterno during his 54 seasons in Happy Valley as assistant and head coach.

"There are no statues in Norman, Okla., dedicated to Gomer Jones. When Bud Wilkinson left a fabulous career coaching the Oklahoma Sooners to national titles
and record winning streaks to become President John F. Kennedy's national physical fitness adviser, he left behind a 17-year record of 145-29-4.  Poor Gomer. Bud's successor lasted two seasons (1964-65) and his 9-11-1 record speaks for how quickly he was run out of that football-crazed town.

"Woody Hayes was in his 27th season as leader of college football's Neanderthal Wing. "When you pass the football," the crusty Ohio State icon would say, "only three things can happen and two of them are bad." So the Hayes Buckeyes ran and ran and ran some more, all the way to a 205-61-10 record. When the old man signed off on his career by assaulting an opposing player at the end of a play in 1978, TV viewers saw a graphic version of King Lear raging at the dying of the light. His successor, Earl Bruce, actually did quite well, going 81-26-1 during eight decent seasons.

"When a plane crash ended Knute Rockne's fabled Notre Dame coaching career, his record was a pristine 105-12-5.  Knute's successor was Hunk Anderson, who was replaced after three seasons and an unacceptable 16-9-2 record, by Four Horsemen member Elmer Layden. The Golden Dome coaching legend was the brilliant Frank Leahy, who rang up an 87-11-9 before ill health forced him to pass the torch to Ed McKeever (8-2) and poor Hugh Devore, who went 9-9 on his way to the public disgrace of failing to win in South Bend. Ara Parseghian was hired after future Eagles coach Joe Kuharich made a fine mess of the Notre Dame program during a 17-23 nightmare that spanned four seasons. Ara went 95-17-4 and restored "Touchdown Jesus" exuberance to what had become a gesture of divine despair.

"Nobody has ever had a worse go in the legend-replacing business than Ray Perkins, an N.F.L. star and distinguished Alabama alumnus. It fell on Ray to replace the "True Governor of Alabama" and uncrowned king of college football, Paul "Bear" Bryant. Bear piled up a Himalayan 323-85-17 record, including 232-46-9 with the Crimson Tide.

The wonder of Perkins and his 32-15-1 record is that he endured all those comparisons, swallowed all that abuse, for four seasons.

"One of the great football characters I met in the early and mid-1960s was Ben Schwartzwalder, the irascible Syracuse coach who sent a host of talented No. 44s into the world - Jim Brown, Ernie Davis and Floyd Little among them. Gentle Ben, as the Penn State people sarcastically called him, had the demeanor of Panzer division general and a ground game to match. Ben left a 153-91-3 record that included the kind of broken-down end game Paterno is suffering through. His successor, Frank Maloney, labored seven seasons with a 32-46-0 bottom line.

"Steve Spurrier's doomed successor at Florida is still working. In Gainesville, the alligators wear golf shirts with Ron Zook on them. Fired at midseason with a 4-3 record, Zook will gamely finish the season while a restive campus remembers the Heisman Trophy winner who came back to give them a 122-27-1 ride to glory in The Swamp.

"The sixth and final stop in the amazing career of Glenn "Pop" Warner was Temple. The old man who coached Pitt to two national championships and led Stanford to three Rose Bowls had a 31-18-9 record in six seasons with the Owls, including a loss to Tulane in the inaugural 1935 Sugar Bowl. And who replaced old Pop Warner? None other than Fred H. Swan, whose Owls dived to a 2-7 record.

"Somewhere, the man who will follow Joe Paterno's tough 39-year act is in a dark room staring at films. Soon, very soon, 220,000 unblinking eyes will be fixed on him."